Fetal monitors are devices to detect and to record the fetal heart rate. However, in case of weak of absent fetal heart signs, or if transducers are incorrectly placed, they may unintentionally record the maternal heart rate. These maternal heart rate patterns can mimic fetal heart rate patterns on such recordings. As a result, lawsuits are filed every year involving cases in which health care providers failed to differentiate between maternal and fetal heart rate patterns. Misinterpreting a heart rate trace may lead to unnecessary actions, unnecessary surgery, delayed delivery of a compromised fetus, or even fetal death.
United States patent application publication US 2007/0066908 A1 describes a method and an apparatus by which one or more fetal heart components are separated from heart signal information obtained from a pregnant female based upon singular value decomposition.